


Nocturnal Prowlers

by Akallabeth



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Canon Era, Don't copy to another site, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-01
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2020-12-27 13:04:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21119261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Akallabeth/pseuds/Akallabeth
Summary: Over dinner at Rousseau's, Courfeyrac warns a woefully unobservant Marius about a notorious barrier prowler, as well as some less-expected dangers of the Parisian streets. And cafes.





	Nocturnal Prowlers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [estelraca](https://archiveofourown.org/users/estelraca/gifts).

> To clarify the rating, this fic contains non-graphic mentions of violence. Closer to G than T, but I rounded up to be safe. The major character death happened before the story started (and, spoilers, it didn't exactly last).

> _"This prowler of the barriers with whom Jondrette was talking resembled a certain Panchaud, alias Printanier, alias Bigrenaille, whom Courfeyrac had once pointed out to him as a very dangerous nocturnal roamer."_ -3.8.10

"Very dangerous?", Marius repeated, after he and Courfeyrac had turned a corner, and achieved a safe distance from the barrier prowler in question.

"There are all sorts of dangers in Paris", Courfeyrac explained, "especially in the dark. The gamins, of course, are not malevolent, only mischievous. They pose no danger except to one's self-importance, and, occasionally, one's pocket change."

Marius nodded an absent agreement. He felt sorry for the ragged children one encountered on the streets, and gave out the odd sou when he could, but didn't really think of them as a_ threat_. But then, he wasn't easily satirized as a piece of fruit. That he noticed.

Courfeyrac, meanwhile, had continued despite his friend's ruminations, "The _filles publique_ upset bourgeoisie sensibilities more than they do real harm, whatever the police may say. Combeferre's written a pamphlet on the subject, if you're interested. Of course it combines his favorite subjects--

"--everything?"

"Ha. You're humor is improving under Bossuet's tutelage. I was going to say 'public health, personal freedom, and economic inequality'. Although, on further reflection, I spoke wrongly--I don't think he managed to include geology, lepidopterology, or steam engines."

By now they had reached Rousseau's, and settled themselves into one of the smaller tables by the window. The general atmosphere was boisterous, though no one was seated particularly near the pair. It was as private a place to speak as any, under the background roar of laughter and conversation. 

"Where was I?"

"Threats to sensibilities?"

"Right. As for actual threats, there are drunken brawls in the streets, but they are usually avoidable. Just don't provoke strangers or get in the way of those who do."

Marius was not overly concerned that he should do so.

"Smugglers don't go looking for trouble, and can also be avoided by minding your own business", Courfeyrac continued. "Accomplished pickpockets are a nuisance, but rarely injure the person, favoring as they do the pocketbook."

"I can't say I've had any difficulty on that score."

"Pontmercy, my dear friend", Courfeyrac lowered his water goblet (while resisting an urge to call the waiter over for actual wine), "meaning no disrespect to your person or the hard work you have put into your independence: no self-respecting pickpocket would ever trouble someone wearing that coat and those trousers. All the same, it's best to be aware of them."

Marius flushed slightly at the slight to his garments, but his friend's smiles (and the bottle of wine he promptly ordered as an apology and then guilted Marius into accepting) soon won him back to good spirits.

"Burglars can be a problem, but usually have loftier goals than the passerby--like the smuggler, it's best to avoid looking too closely at them. Policemen aren't so easily put off, but aren't supposed to use violence. The armed robbers and assassins are worse in that respect. And then there's fiercer sort who that prowler consorts with."

"What, the omnibus horses? You've named every other threat on the street." 

Courfeyrac's laugh was musical. "I don't mean horses, or dogs--no, not even the sort that get royal pensions. Though the birds can be troublesome. Swans should never by trifled with, and last year Joly's landlady was keeping a very bad-tempered goose in the courtyard; it kept following Bossuet and nipping his shoes--"

"I promise not to disturb any birds."

"That's a good start. Birds, like fairies, will mostly leave alone those who don't antagonize them. But the're hardly the most dangerous beings on the streets of Paris. " 

"Fairies?"

"Lyncanthropes are probably next", Courfeyrac continued, "they're dangerous all the time, but can be reasoned with, except for one night a month. But, again, it's a predictable one." 

Marius wasn't sure where this conversation was going, but the wine encouraged him to go along with it.

"Then vampires?"

"Not since '93", Courfeyrac answered with perfect sincerity. "I mean, they're still dangerous individually, and I wouldn't recommend crossing one, but they don't exactly prowl the streets looking for victims. Most of the ones who remain in Paris make a point to avoid anything so common as the street. The three who do such pedestrian things aren't the least bit dangerous to well-meaning people. Especially to you."

"Because of my clothes?" Marius's good mood threatened to falter under repeated attack.

"Because they like you." Marius raised a single eyebrow at that. "Really", Courfeyrac protested, "the whole Napeoleon incident is quite well forgiven and forgotten. And Enjolras is willing to have you back at the Musain as often as you deign to come."

"Enjolras?"

"Yes? Tall, blond, austere fellow who loves his fellow men and forgets that women exist?"

"He's a vampire?" Marius was nearly certain this was building into some elaborate joke, but it did promise to be amusing.

"How--?" The question was out before Marius realized he had asked it.

"Sometimes, when an aristocrat and a Jacobin hate eachother very much, the one bites the other, and the Jacobin becomes immortal through miscalculated timing."

Marius was now completely certain that Courfeyrac was teasing him; Courfeyrac's perfectly serious expression quite decided Marius to never play cards against his friend.

"It was during the Thermidorian reaction. Enjolras was denounced, made a beautiful speech at his trial about the rights of man and the righteousness of the revolution--" Marius noted that Courfeyrac spoke as if he had heard this speech, made 38 years ago by their 25-year-old friend. Who was very much alive and also not a vampire. "And then, in the tumbrel, he gets into some sort of a fight with an aristocrat. The aristocrat bites him, in order to make Enjolras become the thing he most hates. Only, Enjolras didn't actually die of the bite. Not before the execution. So, the aristocrat loses his head, and so does our friend, but then he comes back as a vampire afterward."

"How?" Marius repeated. 

"It is odd", Courfeyrac poured himself a glass of the wine. "Beheading vampires is one of the reliable ways of killing them, after all. Even the _Ancien Regime_ knew that. You can hang a human, but vampires need to be beheaded or burnt, which are coincidentally how the king chose to dispose of aristocrats who annoyed him. Combeferre thinks Enjolras survived because dying is part of the transformation. Also, I may have held his head in place until the process was complete. We think it helped."

Marius's brain, slightly fuddled by the wine, was whirring at this information. He latched onto fleeting impressions.

"So, the revolution was about abolishing vampires?"

"It was always about overthrowing unjust privilege and creating an equitable society", Courfeyrac explained. "But, yes, a proportion of the second estate was literally subsisting on the lifeblood of the third. And all of them were doing so metaphorically."

"And Combeferre--?"

"Enjolras turned him later, at his request, while they were working against the Directory. Feuilly, too."

"_Feuilly's_ a vampire?"

Courfeyrac nodded.

"I can't imagine anyone--**anyone**\--less likely to drink other peoples' blood." 

"It's not like he goes around biting strangers. All of us who can help out. What, exactly, did you think we meant by 'giving our blood for the cause'?"

"Dying?", Marius ventured.

"That, too", Courfeyrac agreed. "But given Grantaire's loud protestations about giving his blood for the motherland-or-at-least-its-favorite-son, I'm surprised you'd taken it so somberly."

"So the leadership of Les Amis de l'ABC are all vampires the same age as my father?" Marius's brain was starting to catch up with its list of objections to this entire conversation, leaving his next exclamation to be "But you're all students!" 

"Marius." Courfeyrac looked him straight in the eye and gently asked, "Have you ever seen any of us in a class?"

"No?"

"People draw conclusions. We let them. Well, Bossuet enjoys legal puzzles too much to stay away from the law school, but his complaints about the professors make everyone assume he's a reluctant student rather than a dead fellow who's too lively to lie still."

"Bossuet? Dead? But he talks to me! And drinks wine, and sometime spills it on my sleeve, and I'm pretty sure ghosts can't do any of those things"

"He's not a _ghost_, my good Pontmercy. He's dead. Well, he died, was buried, and got dug up again as tends to happen to the unlucky. He met Joly in the medical school--it's a good story, get both of them to tell you separately--and now he's livelier than ever. Lightning can be a problem, but Joly's keeping him patched up these days. You must have noticed how agitated he gets during thunderstorms. Come to that", Courfeyrac took a long sip of his wine, "I believe the elusive Mamselle M has a similar story. Only without the 'breaking out of an anatomy class and nearly getting Joly expelled for stealing cadavers' part."

"Courfeyrac, please be serious."

"I am."

"So you're not about to tell me that Bahorel's a _loup garou_, Prouvaire's a fairy, and Grantaire's some sort of mutant squirrel?

"Not at all. Bahorel prefers the term lycanthrope, and there are no fairies in our organization. Depending on how you take the term." Courfeyrac gave Marius an odd look.

"Prouvaire?"

"A gifted poet and one of the best men I've ever met. He can", Courfeyrac continued, "speak to the dead. I mean, anyone can speak to them of course, but he's better than most at actually listening. We met him when he was trying to collaborate with Andre Chenier, and accidentally got Bossuet instead."

"But human?"

"Yes." 

The longer the conversation went on, Courfeyrac never missing a beat, the more Marius felt a sinking suspicion that all this was true. Best to get it over with. 

"Joly?"

"A very clever medical student with an excellent sense of humor. Who happens to be human."

"Grantaire?"

"Satyr."

"Really?" Marius topped off both their glasses.

"Ever wonder why he wears those terribly unflattering trousers, drinks more than a human ever could, and leers at every woman in the room?"

"I thought it was just his way."

Courfeyrac straightened his shoulders importantly. Against his will, Marius found himself grinning at the familiar, humorous gesture. "I'll have you know that the somewhat crass Grantaire we know and love is the result of many hard years work and careful coaching on the social graces. He managed 'not abducting people against their will' very quickly, but more complicated manners are taking a bit longer."

Marius thought for a moment, then asked softly, "Were you the one doing the coaching?"

"Yes, but the work was his own."

"How long" Marius looked up from the table, directly into his friend's eyes. "How long have you know Grantaire?"

"A couple of millenia? Two and a half?"

"You've known Graintaire for 2,500 years?" Just when Marius thought nothing else could shock him, math, his ancient enemy, intruded into the conversation.

"About. We were in Narbonne before Paris. The southern sunshine always feels like home, but we headed north for the anonymity, and found instead that we liked the company."

Marius took a steadying breath. "Courfeyrac. My friend." He paused. "I don't know how to ask this, but, please, know that I don't mean any offense by it--"

"Pontmercy, I'm a siren."

"But you're--"

"--not a singing cannibal part-bird monster?"

"I was going to say 'a man'." That earned a genuine smile. Marius had a momentarily confusing thought (were there any other sort tonight?) that Courfeyrac had been _nervous_. As though he was expected Marius to reject him.

"Homer", Courfeyrac sighed, rather dramatically. "was a great story-teller, but, well, we had some misunderstandings. I tried to tell him how much I liked the_ Illiad_\--in verse, as was the fashion--and he developed the mistaken idea that I was trying to kill him. With music. And that I was a girl. In fairness, I had a high voice when I was young, but he could have _asked_."

"So, are you saying that your singing voice is the is the most dangerous thing on the streets of Paris?"

"No, that honor belongs to the glance of a beautiful woman."

Marius' cheeks colored again, for a rather different reason. Unfortunately, his dining partner noticed this.

"Ah, you know what I mean! All at once you feel yourself clutched--the wheels hold you fast, the glance has ensnared you. You struggle in vain; no more human succor is possible." Courfeyrac threw out an arm theatrically. "You go on falling from gearing to gearing, from agony to agony, from torture to torture, you, your mind, your fortune, your future, your soul; and, according to whether you are in the power of a wicked creature, or of a noble heart, you will not escape from this terrifying machine otherwise than disfigured with shame, or transfigured by passion."

"I...wouldn't put it quite so dramatically."

"If Prouvaire was here, he would put it much more dramatically. Also, in verse."

"So women are the most dangerous thing in the streets?"

"Only to the heart, mind, and soul, unless one's poetry is truly execrable, in which case the ear is also likely to be offended. Few humans are so deadly, outside of their political institutions."

"I know that you're teasing me."

"That's fair, I was."

Courfeyrac paid for dinner (by virtue of handing Mme Rousseau the money before Marius could). 

***

Marius woke up on the spare mattress in Courfeyrac's room. He remembered losing a half-hearted argument about going to his own room, though he couldn't say whether the final rationale was that Courfeyrac needed an escort home against the dangers of the street, or that Marius needed to sleep in a heated apartment, lest the wine he'd drunk upset his humors. Whichever it was, Courfeyrac had obviously won.

Marius had never been a morning person, and the lingering effects of yesterday's wine were not improving his opinion on the time of day. He rolled over slowly, pillowing his head on his arms, and gradually allowing his thoughts to gather themselves. Courfeyrac had told an interesting story over dinner. Vampires, and werewolves, and sirens.

Marius cracked open an eye. On the bed next-to-and-slightly-above his mattress, Courfeyrac slept. The mound under the blankets certainly looked human enough. One foot peaked out from under the coverlet. It was a human foot. 

A human foot with rather oddly shaped toes. Almost talon-like in their appearance. And a soft dusting of downy feathers in place of hair.

It surely wasn't...

"Huh. I thought so." Marius started at his friend's voice. 

"Your family's from the north? Your mother's family in particular?", Courfeyrac yawned on the last syllable.

"I guess. My grandfather lives in Paris, but I'm told my mother's mother was from Normandy."

"That could figure. When were you going to tell me?"

"That my maternal grandmother's Norman?"

"It's your business, but I can see your back, you know."

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"Grantaire thought you might", Courfeyrac explained, without actually explaining anything, "but the men are supposed to appear ugly to humans, so we ruled it out. Sort of. I suspected unreliable stories, and Combeferre wondered if partial maternal lineage would explain it--a beautiful man with an impressive nose and a fondness for trees--"

"Courfeyrac, it is too early for riddles. What are you talking about?"

Marius heard a scuffling noise, as Courfeyrac extracted himself from his nest of blankets on the bed, and knelt down on next to Marius on the mattress. 

"The shaving mirror is not going to show it all, and Bossuet broke the larger mirror anyway. May I touch you?"

"Alright." Marius had no idea where this was going.

"What I meant was this", Courfeyrac placed his hand on the back of Marius's shirt, below the right shoulder blade, and traced it across to the left. Directly over the hollow in his back. The hollow that Marius had, somehow, never before noticed.

When Marius woke up again, Courfeyrac had built up the fire. And tucked all of the blankets from his own bed around Marius.

"Sorry about that. The fainting. I didn't mean to startle you."

"What's going on? What's wrong with me?

"Nothing's wrong, you're just a huldrekall. Why don't you get dressed, and we'll go see Combeferre. He's been collecting books."

"Alright." Marius took a steadying breath. Later, in his own room, he intended to spend a great deal of time screaming, and not about Napoleon this time. For now, Combeferre's books sounded like a good option.

When the made their way downstairs, Marius had composed himself enough to ask, flippantly:

"So where am I on the list of dangerous street prowlers?" 

**Author's Note:**

> To recap:  
Enjolras, Combeferre, and Feuilly are vampires for!the!revolution! They don't die immediately in sunlight, but it's not very good them, either. All the light symbolism is sadly metaphorical for them, but if anyone can find a solution, it's Ferre.  
Bahorel is a werewolf, and really likes it.  
Grantaire is a satyr.  
Courfeyrac is a siren. He does not actually want to drown you, he just really likes meeting people.  
Bossuet was dead, but is still walking around. So is his girlfriend.  
Joly is a normal human that can reanimate the dead. Or at least keep them on their feet.  
Prouvaire is a normal human that talks to ghosts and tries to listen to what they say. He's getting pretty good at it.  
Marius is a [Hudrekall](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hulder), a northern forest spirit sometimes compared to a siren. He doesn't have a tail (fox or cow), but does have the hollow back.
> 
> Courfeyrac's long bit about women having gaze attacks is Hugo from 3.6.6 (Hapgood translation), and someday I will write a Cosette-centered crackfic about that.


End file.
